I'm on Facebook, I just can't get to it here, it's one of the sites stuck behind the Great Firewall.
I just read that article from mother chronicle. It was ok...a bit waffly.
But...I did have a bit of an issue with them saying that preemie babies fed on formula had lower IQs. No-one knows really why most preemie babies are not born at the 'right' time. I was 9 weeks early and my mum was out for the count for the first couple of days. I was an emergency birth (the last thing she remembers is being given anaesthetic in the lift on the way to the maternity unit...). So I was formula fed by the hospital for the first few days. The formula was also pumped with antibiotics and steroids. Mum could never have provided me with the drugs that i needed in the first week of life. They cut my cord short and filled it with tubes so that I could have drips directly into my system too.
Now, I'm nearly 30 (getting old...), I have a degree and I'm not in the low IQ bracket. It's not fair for someone to say 'oh Formula fed babies are more likely to have a lower IQ' any more than it is for them to say 'Breast fed babies have a lower IQ'. Some women cannot breast feed for various reasons (mum was asleep...). As soon as my mum could feed me, she did. She wasn't allowed to feed me for the first three days because of the anaesthetic drugs she'd been given and because I needed to have a specific set of drugs. She didn't even touch me for 10 days because I was in an incubator. She had to express milk. It wasn't her fault! If i'd have come on time like my sister did, she would have fed me herself, if i'd been healthy and not in any danger, she would have fed me.
As it was, I came out of hospital a month later. I didn't put on weight unless mum fed me, even if it was the enriched formula. After I lost too much weight, they sent me home for the weekend. After the weekend, I'd put it all back on and they told mum not to bring me back! I believe that it is the emotional bond and the comfort that are important, not where the milk comes from. Mum was feeding me exactly the same at home as the hospital were (bless her, she even got up every four hours to wake me up to give me the drugs...), but being with my mum made me gain weight.
Anyway...after the diatribe...I don't like the lactivists who make anyone feel guilty or bad for not breastfeeding. Some can, some can't. It's not fair to stigmatise people for doing what they see as the best thing they can do.
P.S. I'm also 5'10" tall...so I didn't get the stunted growth either
